myerstownherald.com

By ASHLEY DOS SANTOS
As thousands of Americans dressed up as Jon and Kate Gosselin for Halloween last week, Jon Gosselin also donned a new costume: spiritual pilgrim.
Jon, despite identifying as an evangelical Christian, recently had a very public meeting with Rabbi Shmuley Boteach for spiritual guidance on his quest to extend his 15 minutes of fame.
If there is one thing that the Gosselin media circus was missing, it was a good old fashioned dose of artificial piety.
Before their tabloid explosion, Jon and Kate Gosselin were actually considered role models by some religious communities because of their refusal to use selective termination when they found out that they were having sextuplets.
Now, it seems like Rabbi Shmuley is about the only religious figure willing to interact publicly with Jon Gosselin.
If the name Rabbi Shmuley sounds at all familiar, it’s because he was linked recently to Michael Jackson as his spiritual leader for a short time. The Rabbi’s book, chronicling the singer’s most private and confidential sentiments, was released in September after Jackson’s untimely death. Now that those 15 minutes of fame are up, Shmuley has conveniently found a new advisee in Jon Gosselin. You do the math.
Jon’s visit with the Rabbi is his latest public effort to clean up his image. We’re all painfully aware of Jon’s recent philandering, and how the slew of bad press forced TLC to drop him from his own television show.
So what did Jon learn throughout his deep spiritual quest? Jon told reporters after the meeting, “I am well aware that my behavior over the past few months has not always reflected my personal and religious values…I have allowed myself to become somewhat severed from my own moral anchor and be carried away by the challenges of fame.”
That’s an understatement, Jon. Just wait until your kids are old enough to Google you. Then try to teach them life lessons about morality and see how they react.
If there is one positive outcome from this ridiculous event, it’s that Jon Gosselin has reportedly “slowed things down” with his 22-year-old party-girl companion Hailey Glassman.
Previously, rumors were swirling that Glassman and Gosselin had discussed marriage, sending shivers down America’s collective backs.
The idea that this 22-year-old, whose Facebook profile is rife with photos of binge drinking and drug use, could possibly serve as a stepmother to 8 children under the age of ten would be laughable if it weren’t so utterly sad.
So while Jon Gosselin deserves credit for making one good decision, it’s pretty clear he hasn’t reached nirvana.
This meeting with Rabbi Shmuley conveniently took place a few days before Kate Gosselin’s highly publicized interview with NBC’s Natalie Morales aired on TLC. You don’t have to be a biblical scholar to figure out that this is yet another publicity stunt from a man who is watching his fame wane as his soon-to-be ex-wife’s stardom keeps rising.
To paraphrase a famous Bible verse: “It’s easier to get a camel through the eye of a needle… [than to get a man with tabloid money, hair plugs and a trashy college co-ed girlfriend into heaven].” Let’s hope Jon takes this message to heart and uses his new spiritual side to turn away from spending time with media-loving Rabbis and other C-list celebrities to focus on the truly important people in his life: his children.
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Ben Grinspan contributed to this article.
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Ashley Dos Santos serves as a senior account executive at Crosby~Volmer International Communications in Washington D.C. She received her bachelor of arts degree in women & gender studies and romance languages from Dartmouth College.